Thanksgiving

While sitting in the car waiting to go down to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving, I started to get annoyed at the fact that we were fifteen minutes late and my dad was just getting dressed. I just put in my headphones and listened to my Zune for a few more minutes until the rest of my family got in the car and started down the hill to my grandparent’s house. When we got there it was the usual, “Oh, I missed you so much, how’s school?

Everyone sat in the kitchen talking and drinking soda and wine while we waited for the peas to cook like every year. But I was surprised to learn that we were not the last to arrive, that my Great Grandpa Boyce was still not there. This was very odd, considering he is always the first to be there. Just as everyone started to talk of his absence, he walked in the door, and it just so happened that the peas were done. 

We all sat down at the beautifully-decorated table with the fine china all set out and started to pass the food around the table in a counter-clockwise fashion. Then, the food train suddenly stopped. Grandpa Boyce was bent over in his chair, not moving, and gasping for breath. He was having a stroke. We called 911, and the paramedics came to the house and worked on him in the kitchen while my cousins, my brother and I were rushed into the living room, away from all the madness. Eventually, Grandpa Boyce was taken to the hospital, where he died a few weeks later. 

My takeaway definitely isn't a happy memory, but it is one that really made me feel something. It wasn't sadness, although I was sad, and it wasn't being scared, although I was scared. It was something else. It was the realization that the world isn't a utopia. I know this very well now, but as an 11 year old girl, I generally thought the world was made up of sugar and spice and everything nice. This was my first glimpse of the world as it truly is, unfair, cold and real.